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“And your dad?” he asked. “Or are men not allowed?”
“You’re here.”
“I guess I should be glad.”
The silence buzzed as if carrying the weight of all his unasked questions, and I could actually feel him thinking. Wondering.
“What was it that Tyler did to make things so bad?” he finally asked.
“He dated the police chief’s daughter,” I said. “Broke her heart. For years, anything went wrong in town, anything at all and the first person they’d talk to was an O’Neill.”
“That’s not fair,” he said, stiff and stern as though he knew what was fair in this world.
“Whatever is?”
“What about you?” he asked, his voice light, teasing. “Did you get into trouble?”
“I’m an O’Neill,” I said, with a stiff shrug. “It’s what we do.”
I tried to step over the rocks but distracted and skittish, I tilted off balance.
He caught me. His hand at my waist. Burning right through my clothes. I sucked in a breath and his fingers squeezed, just slightly, like he was testing my muscle. Feeling as much of me as he could in that second.
I twisted away, stumbling slightly across the rocks, but I made it to solid ground. We stood there staring at each other.
He opened and closed his fist. The hand that touched me, like he could still feel my body under his palm. His eyes… God, there was something about his eyes.
I left before I did anything stupid.
After dinner, I sat on the front porch drinking iced tea and waited for Juliette, who had called to say she was coming over with word about fingerprints.
I was also trying to avoid Matt.
My waist still felt his touch, like a shadow or a burn.
It was so strange having a man around. In this house of estrogen and silk, the deep timbre of a man’s voice hadn’t been heard after dinner for eight years.
It made me miss my brothers. I should tell them to come home for Christmas. This distance between us, growing and growing over the years, was too much. Tyler avoiding this town like the plague and Carter being too busy to spend some time with family, it had to end, or this distance would grow into something worse. Something we wouldn’t be able to get over at a Christmas dinner.
Matt walked past, his arms filled with scrap metal and wood that he dumped by the side of the road.
He lifted his hand in a wave and I nodded, feeling stiff and foolish like a sixteen-year-old girl with a crush.
Juliette pulled up in her tan sedan and I was glad for the distraction.
“So?” Juliette said, joining me on the porch steps as Matt went around the house to the courtyards. She stretched out her long legs and leaned back against the railing. “That’s Matt Howe?”
“That’s him.”
“Where’s Katie?”
“In the kitchen with Margot. They’re baking away their stress. You should stick around for sugar pie.”
“I will,” Juliette said. “You thinking about fucking away your stress?” Juliette asked, nodding in the direction Matt had disappeared. I laughed. “It’s not funny, Savannah, you’re staring at that man like he’s the sugar pie.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said, blushing and angry because Juliette was right. Worse, I would have to reveal Matt’s sleeping arrangements. And Juliette was never going to believe I didn’t want to have sex with him. “Matt is spending the night here now.”
“Where?”
“Sleeping porch.”
“Oh my god, you’re totally going to fuck away your stress.”
“No. I’m not.” But maybe? I mean… I had a lot of stress.
“I’ve called in some favors with the boys in Baton Rouge,” Juliette said, “they’re gonna run Matt’s name through the computer up there.”
“I doubt they’ll find anything.
“You trust him?”
“I do.”
“You trusted Eric.”
Right. Eric. The mistake by which all other mistakes were measured. “Everyone wants to talk about Eric these days,” I muttered.
“For good reason,” Juliette said. “History might be repeating itself before our very eyes.”
“I was already sleeping with Eric before I invited him to stay here. And I’m not sleeping with Matt. I’m not doing anything with Matt.”
“Except watching him from the porch.”
“Nothing wrong with that.”
Matt emerged once more from behind the house, his arms full, muscles flexed and damp. “Not when he looks like that,” Juliette said. “Good lord. Glasses?”
“I know. I don’t think ax murderers wear glasses, do they?”
“That’s not at all funny,” Juliette grumbled.
I slid my hand over Juliette’s elbow. “Thank you for being here last night,” I said, reliving those terrifying moments after Katie’s screams had split the night. I’d called Juliette, frantic and freaked out, and my friend had arrived in no time, stayed until the fingerprints had been dusted, then rushed them to the station and all the fancy equipment she’d purchased last year.
“I’m glad you called,” Juliette said, squeezing my fingers. “I’m just sorry I don’t have more information for you.”
“The fingerprints?”
“The only prints in the whole room were yours, Margot’s and Katie’s. The intruder must have been wearing gloves.”
